Matthew Sorrels

Just a few quick notes/first impression. Purchasing it was simple, uses a serial number to auth. Four VST3 plugins, Simple installer. You enter your serial number in one and it auths the whole package. No VST2 versions (I wonder if they didn't get a VST2 license?). It's very like Captain Chords. It has very similar UI. Just like CC you use the chords plugin to put together your progression. It is synced with all the plugins. There is only a tiny getting started PDF that comes with the download for help. Seems to pipe all the audio out the chords plugin, rather than each plugin having it's own sound when using the generated MIDI (but not when you feed it MIDI). Kind of weird. It's solo/mute options also didn't seem to work the way I thought they should. You can turn off the synth. I drag and dropped the MIDI out of each, I'm not sure if you can record the MIDI out or route it live, didn't really try. The whole coordination system seemed a bit off. I ended up having to solo each of the four instruments to get them all to play. The syncing with the DAW is kind of strange too. If you drag the MIDI out and want to play it you have to turn off the DAW sync, otherwise it always plays the MIDI it's generated. Which would be fine if you could make the MIDI empty, but you can't. There is always one chord/bar. So to silence it you have to turn off the DAW sync. The synth is very EDM/Pop and the presets are kind of generic bland synth presets. I think I like Captain Chords synths better, but they are pretty comparable. The AI options for making MIDI does seem fairly nice. I liked the melody and arp generators the most. The bass and chords generators are kind of plain (not a surprise though). It doesn't have tons of options (neither does Orb Composer come to think of it). Mostly you are setting a few parameters and it randomly makes something. I did like a few of the bits it came up with though. UI isn't resizable at all, which really hurts it a ton. Little tiny fixed windows. Didn't crash and my CbB project reloaded after saving. So that's a plus (a test I usually do with new stuff). Captain Chords does have more parts (drums) and slightly better sound set/synth set, but I think I like the generated stuff in Orb Producer more. It made some very nice melody/arp/bass bits. As a chord/songwriting tool this isn't that bad. A lot easier to use than Orb Composer. They really need to make the GUI resizeable.

Hexacord has released what looks like a plugin version of their Orb Composer product, Orb Producer Suite https://www.orb-composer.com/orb-producer-suite-2/ I have Orb Composer and like but also hate, it's very interesting but is hampered by some really bad software design. These plugin versions look interesting because they may avoid a bunch of those issues. They sent out a coupon for the new suite to subscribers to their newsletter today: ORBREWARD takes the price from 99 euro to 79 euro. Offer good for 15 days it says. They have a demo version: https://www.orb-composer.com/try-orb-producer I'll be picking this up later today. I was waiting for the coupon or a discount at dealers to show up. It's not clear if the 99 euro offer includes VAT, since they don't take anything off when you order. If they aren't adding VAT to it for EU customers that would mean US customers are overpaying (my pet peeve). I'd recommend trying the demo version though, they don't have the best track record. I'll post more when I've had a chance to try it. It looks a bit like Captain Chords.

I had to WUP mine to get everything on V11, have a few months left. Kind of sad how few things they have added though. Definitely not a good deal for me. I installed this and I own all the plugins it will host. Has a bunch of presets, including a bunch of artist presets, they are nice. But to be honest a multi-plugin host really isn't any better than the plugins themselves. These are good plugins and combining them is a good thing. But it's not a $50 extra product.

Included in Mercury.

How exactly could the Geek Squad refurbish a SSD drive? These must be working units they pulled from returned computers. Which means they aren't refurbished at all. Besides 1TB is so 2016, you should be thinking 4TB now. 😁

The only one I want is Monomental Bass. I think I'm going to pass for now, wait for Vol 5. It's not a bad product though, if you aren't upgrading.

I love how they say login for a custom upgrade price. I own Vol 3 and also the Passive-Active Pack (separate). So I was expecting a slight discount on the upgrade. Nope, $199. Same as Audio Deluxe's list price for the upgrade.

Generally it's easier to just shift your keyboard down an octave (or more), so that the lowest key is note C0. You won't be able to play the high range of course, but you can trigger the keyswitches. If you use the MIDI Key+ I think you need to go down an octave, depending on where your keyboard is playing. Most 61-key keyboards do have an octave switch. If you have the full version of Kontakt you can use this free multikey script to remap keys (doesn't work in the Player version though): https://cinesamples.com/product/cinemap This free plugin might also be able to do it: https://www.codefn42.com/notemapper/ The Orchestra doesn't appear to have any native articulation remapping features(or I couldn't find any). And none of the articulation changes can be MIDI learned. Usually I just add a separate track and place keyswitch articulations on it using the piano roll editor, rather than trying to play it live. Or split it up so that each articulation has it's own separate MIDI track. You could always play the articulations with notes you can reach and then move the notes into place afterwards. Usually you have to get the switch done before the note on anyway, which almost always needs precise editing.

Yeah it's not an on-disc duplication. It's some sort of software/database duplication/bug. Maybe it's by design, though the other top level categories don't have an echo. I just can't remember what it looked like before this new content though. It may have always been that way. It's not really worth bugging IK about. But if everyone is seeing it too, then I hope they notice it and fix it.

I think the problem is he's spent many years building this inside Synthedit, himself. And Synthedit isn't 64bit (or maybe it is now? Not sure--don't really care). Changing that to another development platform that works in 64bits is a hard road. Requires starting again on the implementation. Now in theory that isn't as hard since you have the design and maybe the art/UI layout/etc, but it's still a high bar to get over. Kind of like remaking a movie that was shot in black & white. It's a lot of work and the end result may not be as beloved and awesome as the original.

So I figured I had to get it just to see. $1.41 with the Paypal exchange rate. They have removed the jBridged version from the installer. Website says: So the installer doesn't let you control where it places things. By default it sticks it in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugins and it places the system files and what not in c:\Program Files (x86)\GenesisPro I moved the two plugin DLLs (only one is a plugin, the other is support) into a new directory on a Content drive that is writable by my normal user account. Synthedit plugins love to write files just under the DLL. Sure enough, this was enough to get around the requirement that you run the DAW/Plugin host as admin. I suspect you could put the plugin in a directory under your 32-bit VST2 plugins and change the access rights so that it's writable and it would work without having to run as Admin. The first time I started it in Cakewalk it wouldn't play any sounds. I was afraid it was because I run at 48khz. I restarted Cakewalk and tried it at 44.1khz and it worked just fine (both times the UI came up and worked just fine, just that first time it made no sounds). Afterward I tried 48khz again and it worked. I'm not sure if there is an issue there or not. This is with the Cakewalk built in bitbridge. I haven't tried the full/licensed version of jBridge yet. It seems to work OK in CbB without being ran as Admin, if you have it in a writable directory. I was able to play through a bunch of the presets. The UI is very tiny on my 4k monitor. And it's not resizable. It also works and feels exactly like a Synthedit plugin, which isn't really a good thing. I haven't spent any time trying it out though, but I'll be honest I wasn't very impressed at all. But I may be judging it on a high bar against a bunch of very pricey synths. Even WA Production's Ascension seems better to me (and it's pretty cheap). Synthmaster, VPS Avenger, Rob Papen anything, etc. This might have been interesting in 2010, but the world has changed. A few of the sequence presets seem nice. It clearly does have some things under the hood, if you can get at them. Many of the presets are kind of bland though. I only see 128 presets, I may be missing something there. May need to look at the manual or watch some videos. I wouldn't have bought it for normal synth prices. I'm not really sure what I can get out of it to be honest, but at less than $1.50 I'm OK with that.

Has it happened yet? No I don't think so. But I believe it could be done and I have the degree and resume to back that up. There is a very big difference between running with an account that has admin privileges and running software as administrator. That whole UAC asking for permission thing is to help with security silos. You may have admin rights, but not actively all the time. Of course in the end the real security problems are always the things you didn't foresee. I don't think it's the biggest problem for this, but I still wouldn't regularly run my DAW as admin. Maybe once to authorize something, but day in and day out, no that's a bit too far.

For 32bit software usually the requirement for admin access is because the software tries to write data to protected areas of the registry and/or file system (program files and the Windows directory). Sometimes it's possible to set access rights on registry keys to allow the 32bit software to function. It's not so much a problem with it being 32bit, but rather being 32bit and designed for Windows XP and earlier. You can have a well behaved 32bit plugin. Synthedit however may not be one of those. One thing that might help is to install the plugin somewhere other than Program Files, a writable directory all by itself. JBridge doesn't always require you run as admin any more (at least it hasn't for me), but it does have issues with this pre-Windows 8 security design flaws. Depends on the plugin. As far as admin mode. One of the biggest problems is that network shares mounted under the user account aren't actually visible in admin mode. So if you use a local network drive (I have a large, very fast NAS) running as admin those drives aren't available. There are ways to work around this (remount the drives as admin, there are some Windows config tricks too) but I don't really enjoy dealing with that one. Since I store a lot of my not often used ACID Loop library on the NAS, running my DAW as admin makes all that a huge mess. Other problems involve software authorization issues. Technically the Admin account isn't the user account. So config files and registry settings aren't always the same. Most software products aren't really designed to run well in a multi-user environment. All kinds of strange missing presets/settings problems can show up. You may be able to use Genesis Pro but some other plugin you use may not work right anymore at all. This extends to problems with accessing things created by the admin account. You end up files and directories that can't be deleted/renamed/moved without having to take extra steps. And of course running your DAW as admin opens a huge security surface to scripts and plugins that aren't designed to be "safe". The script languages available inside many plugins are crazy powerful and could easily be misused. And no anti-virus product on earth will catch a Kontakt instrument that also steals all your browser cookies and serial numbers for music software. They just aren't looking out for that. Running a DAW as admin opens surface. It's just not very safe. Certainly not just for one 32bit synth.

Hard Pass. No synth is worth the headaches running a DAW in admin mode involves.

It's the same with me. When this came out I updated and reinstalled the sounds update thinking that was it. But then I couldn't find the editor. While looking for the editor download I got the popup that offered CS and the Editor and they were added to my account, with serial numbers.

In case it wasn't clear to everyone this CS release does contain new instruments that aren't in/weren't in SampleTank 4 MAX before. So even if you do have MAX you do want to get this. And that means you have to get a serial number and enter it into the authorization manager.

There is a little folder icon in the upper left corner that switches to folder view. It's a lot more useful at browsing, especially SampleTank 3 instruments.

I updated and installed the CS sounds, mostly seemed to work OK. But now in folder view when I select SampleTank 4 MAX I'm seeing the various categories but there is also a SampleTank 4 folder that appears to duplicate everything above it. I don't remember that before. I've rebuilt the database completely.

I think their management is using the Mac OS change as the excuse to also shut down the authorization server. Right now if they kept running the server/everything like it is now they would still have to tell every Mac customer there are no 64-bit versions of some of these plugins (so no way to run them) and the ones that do have 64-bit versions there is no 64-bit version of the Service Center, so you can't auth/use those either. I guess rather than do that they are just shutting it all down for everyone. They seem to think they have legal cover on this with their EULA. Though I'll admit I think they may be a bit optimistic on that.

As long as you have installed and authorized it now, unless your computer changes, it will continue to run. But you won't be able to install it on a new computer. Also if your computer changes too much (Windows Updates?) it could cause the hardware id to change, which would de-authorize the software. I don't think it's server issues that are causing them to do this. More like the fact none of it will work on the new Mac OS, coupled with they don't want to deal with supporting it. There are an infinite number of other (better) solutions they could use in this case. Some of which requires some combination of either changing/updating software they may not be able to easily recompile/rebuild/recreate or removing encryption on files, that they may not be able to do legally. Suppose they had a tool that would remove the encryption on the EastWest libraries, making them plain Kontakt libraries. EastWest might not be so keen on them giving that away, since it would fully unlock their product. I doubt they can make the old Service Center run on new Mac's without a lot of dev work. Dev work on a product they may not even be able to compile that is 32bit (you can't run that on a Mac now). Given all these headaches to support things that aren't bringing in any money it's not a big surprise they are just killing everything. They could have designed Native Access to better support their original copy protection. Maybe. I doubt we'll even know for sure what tipped them this direction. Some sort of unlock generator might be possible (if pirates can do it, they could do it too). Or they could fix Kontakt to not block products protected by the old license scheme. For the plugins those are all NI products, in theory they could just rebuild them to not do challenge-response and just take a serial number.

This thread (a very good thread to read) on the NI forum talks about an early version of Spitfire's bespoke library using just a serial number for authorization inside Kontakt and it not working https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/ni-stop-activations-on-legacy-libraries.376981/page-2 EvilDragon says this: Not sure that's so good for you Larry. 😭 Maybe you'll be spared, but it sure sounds like the serial number is fed into a challenge-response system. The truth is that any challenge-response based copy protection system can and will go offline. Unless it's just a serial number or something stored 100% in a dongle, when the company stops issuing responses, your product will no longer be re-installable. For me this list of things NI is killing is a at least a thousand dollars worth of stuff. Sadly it's not even close to most I've lost because of companies not continuing to run authorization servers (Autodesk is still winning that by about $2-3k) Given the state of software products I don't see this one changing into something I like anytime soon. More likely it will lead to more and more subscription products, rather than companies going with copy protection that can survive the company going out of business/shutting-down. But I love software to much to avoid products just because their copy protection isn't ideal. I would have still bought all these products had I been told that in 2020 they were going to off line the authorization server. I do think NI could have done better though.

The VST2 versions of Fabfilter plugins don't support custom resizing like the VST3 versions. In the VST2 version you can select a pre-defined size, but there is no resizer. In fact I'd say most of my VST2 vs VST3 issues boil down to two things: MIDI and GUI resizing. VST3 has really bad MIDI support. So a lot of the things plugin developers do with MIDI are much harder (though not really impossible). So things like MIDI generator plugins almost always the VST2 version is better. VST2 resizing the plugin GUI requires the developer jump through a bunch of hoops. VST3 has some sort of support for that, so there are often big differences between plugins in how the VST3 version will let you resize and the VST2 won't. The only plugin I swear by the VST2 version though is Sampletank 3. Sampletank's VST3 implmentation is at best buggy. Sampletank 4 has gotten better but I still don't trust it. IK Multimedia and VST3 don't mix.

B4 and B4 II are NI's old organ VSTs, not Battery 4.

It's not the current Chris Hein Horns, it's the original first volumes. Anything that uses the old NI Service Center for an authorization.

VST3 plugins shouldn't let you choose a directory to install to on Windows. That's the way it's been designed. They are only supposed to be installed into Program Files\Common Files\VST3 Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3 With Program Files being the Windows PF directory, which oddly enough doesn't have to be C:\ but is usually. Plugin developers are encouraged to install their other files in the various user and app data directories. Cause otherwise there is a good chance it won't work.